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Ah, but there's the rub! The notion of "Accuracy" inherently inserts Science as the arbiter of satisfaction. On a pretty basic level, I'm not yet ready to subscribe to the Church of Science. Now, before I'm impaled with forceps or ignited on a bunson burner (or whatever fate befalls "Faithists"), let me digress just a little.

Isn't it true that what we know as "Modern Science" has only been around for a fraction of human existence? Isn't it also true that there continue to be new scientific discoveries? How can we then reasonably assert that we are able to measure everything that we "know" or even know that it needs measuring?




I think in a lot of ways, this is the power of science: being proven wrong is an acceptable, even necessary part of it. That's why it's not faith; it's science.

Many people point to disproven hypotheses as evidence that science is no good. But that's far from the truth; it's a necessary part of good, correct scientific investigation to be open to the idea that a hypothesis (not the same as a theory), or even a theory, is wrong. Now, hypotheses generally get promoted to theories when sufficient evidence (lab results, mathematical proofs, observational results, etc) is accumulated. The same occurs with laws, although I think that's probably becoming less of an accepted term; we know that Newton's laws are incorrect at the extremes (very small, very fast, very large).

There's also gabbling about the term "theory." Oh, the "Theory of Gravity," the saying goes... But in science, a theory means a lot more than it does in common usage. It means that it's been tested (independently) by multiple organizations/people/labs/whatever and found to be a correct descriptor of what is observed.


I am the Doctor, and THIS... is my SPOON!